Okami Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Victoria

last night i came here at 7pm to have my dinner, i walked myself to the table since the restaurant seemed pretty empty than usual and there were a lot of empty seats. when i started to order in the ipad, i noticed that the table number 52 got 5 pax and we were only 4 of us, so i asked a worker beside my table who was cleaning the other table, and he wasn’t sure and he asked the other worker and they told me that it showed 5 pax in the ipad doesn’t matter, as we were enjoying our dinner, this tall asian girl came to us asking if we reserved, and if someone walked us to this table, as soon as i think i made a mistake that i just chose my own table, i said sorry it was me, because the staff all looked busy and the place looked empty that time. and she rolled her eyes and said we have to leave in 4 minutes where we just sat there for around 41 minutes and the sitting hours were 2 hours for the buffet. she kept debating us rudely until we said we preferred to talk to the manager, then the manager came, she was great and lovely. she understood the problem, she talked nicely and said sorry when we complaint about the other staff that was crazy rude, arrogant and impolite, and she made another table for the other reservation so we didn’t have to leave until 9pm, eventho we couldn’t enjoy our food anymore after the bad treatment from that one staff, but overall all staff was good especially the japanese lady that always smiles and so polite, food was good. not sure if we will come back after this since okami restaurant not just in ballarat. hopefully that specific staff gets more training in customer handling, because definitely how she talked to us was not how any worker supposed to talk to costumer, and we didn’t get any “sorry” at all from her after her rudeness made we all lose appetite, and yet she still grab the extra chair in our table rudely in fast pace. i know we all looked around same age as her, or maybe bit younger, but we’re still customers, was a returning customer, not someone that she can yelled at. also maybe next time can put “please wait to be seated” or “reserved” sign in the table. or if they were there, maybe can make them more noticeable, so everyone can have a spot to wait to be walked to the table. because sometimes it’s not that we didn’t know the restaurant rules, sometimes...

The food was very nice however the service (making every single possible allowance for the impacts of Covid) ruined the evening, and we were relieved we were not there for a special occasion. In a busy large restaurant with numerous wait staff buzzing around we were repeatedly ignored or rudely told to wait. After a while we realised that of the numerous wait staff only one was actually taking orders. At the end of the evening it turns out there were problems with the wifi and it was taking the ‘designated’ payment person between ten to fifteen minutes per group to have some negotiation over how payment could be made. We had to wait in line for forty minutes for our turn to learn what the big drama was and the opportunity to move on with our night. Oh and the designated payment person was also the only bar man so he kept leaving his half conversation re payment to serve the ever growing line of annoyed people at the bar. The whole evening was so comical that we actually started making jokes that is was all set up for a Gordon Ramsay episode. As cash was not an option for us , after a fifteen minute discussion I left my phone number and drivers license details with the agreement they would call me when the machine was working and I would pay by card over the phone. Instead of calling me they have texted me in the middle of the night twice (1.30am not kidding) requesting I come in to pay. We are not from Ballarat so that is impossible.

We know all about the impacts on covid in hospitality but this experience was rude, unprofessional considering how many staff were actually working that evening, and we will never go back. Worst restaurant experience we have ever had. It is unfortunate because we had been here before and had a lovely experience so this was annoyingly...

**Update 8th Jan: both Okami head office and the Ballarat store has been in contact. I will be sure to update my review again if I visit and have an improved experience as I had previously enjoyed.

Open disclaimer, between the 5 of us, we had eaten here 6 times before and loved everytime. It gets very busy so we knew what to expect. They previously overcompensated for the busyness by providing bigger serving sizes

We had the 5.30pm sitting so knew that we only had 2 hours to eat. With this in mind, we ordered a lot of dishes at 5.40 (after getting drinks). The first dishes (sushi and sashimi plate, gyoza, potato croquettes and others) did not arrive until 6pm. And when they did, the serving sizes were tiny. So we immediately ordered much more. The next food did not come until 6.30 so we ordered more while we were waiting realising that the service on this night was extremely slow, the serving sizes were tiny and we were in trouble of not getting enough to eat for the 5 of us.

Most of the wait staff were very difficult to get any service from. They did not smile, were not friendly at all and did not seem to move with any purpose at all. We were then told at 6.45pm that last orders were being taken for the 5.30pm sitting - despite our table waiting on one previous order. But, we ordered more anyhow.

When the order that we were still waiting on finally arrived at 6.55, it was lukewarm at best, the teriayaki sauce on the steak had turned gelatinous and it was really really poor. Indicating to us that it had likely been sitting there a while waiting for the very slow wait staff to deliver the food to our table.

In total, with drinks, it cost us just on $200 for the 5 of us which for Ballarat, would have easily bought us much better food at many of the other...